


Are You Still Mad?

by Bitchpoet



Category: Catch 22 - Fandom
Genre: Catch 22, Friends With Benefits, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Kinda fluff tbh like damn, Kissing, M/M, Yossarian / Orr, orr starts a fire, they kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 14:10:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19174906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitchpoet/pseuds/Bitchpoet
Summary: Orr has no business tinkering in the wee hours of the night and despite Yossarian telling him this countless times, he doesn’t listen. What comes next is a tent fire and a mildly heroic Yo-Yo.





	Are You Still Mad?

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y’all I needed some Yossarian/Orr action and I found just a bit on here that I was rather pleased with. Good job!! Anyway, take this and remember pls that in this one Aarfy isn’t a horrible monster & McWatt never killed Kid Sampson. Thx xoxo

Yossarian is over this day, much like he’s been very well over the rest of them but he means it. He means this one specifically. You know, it started out alright, he would admit - things were looking up and with only three more missions to go, he was starting to believe there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. Though, he knew he’d be silly to believe such a thing. 

 

After the meeting that was called after dinner, a belly full of pasta and barely-chewed tomatoes was expelledright outside the threshold. Yossarian wasn’t the only one who couldn’t stomach the news but it seems all the other sick-to-their-stomach-men had dispersed, seemingly too embarrassed to admit they’d rather be anywhere else than here, fighting for their country. 

 

Well, Yossarian doesn’t give a shit anymore. 

 

“Hey, buddy!” Aarfy calls over the sound of a jets second engine right behind his head. Yossarian kinda wished it’d suck him up and spit him back out, just a pile of bones and nothing else left of him. He assumes that even after he dies, Aarfy will find a way to terrorize him, whether it’s a smack on the back of his unsuspecting head or the bets he makes with McWatt to Yossarians expense. The truth is that Aarfy worries about Yossarian, fears that some day Orr will come out of his tent for the first time without a stupid grin on his face, informing the first person he sees that John had done something stupid and won’t wake up. 

 

It’s unlikely, he knows, because it’s been too many times to count now that Yossarian has said both in the sky and on the ground that he doesn’t want to die, though, he’s not sure how much he wants to live anymore, either. 

 

 

“Okay..” Aarfy murmurs to himself when Yossarian keeps walking, head forward and eyes straight ahead as if no one had spoken a word to him. 

 

“Let him pout, you know it’ll only be a couple days.” McWatt says cheerily through the cigarette between his teeth, his eyes rolling back into his head. Just like Aarfy, McWatt cares for Yossarian more than anyone else, really - it may have to do with all the late night conversations they’d had over Milos wine from their kind neighbors who loved to trade goats. They’d talk about life back home, who they missed and who they hope is dead when they come back. 

 

In these conversations, everyone comes home. 

 

——————

 

It’s barely light out when Yossarian is jolted awake by the loud sound of a wrench clambering to the floor and Orr murmuring a gentle “shh!” After. He turns on his side and sighs, displaying obvious annoyance but Orr didn’t see it this way. “Oh! You’re awake!” He exclaims, the only light around him is three lit lanterns and a red candle he had stolen from Milo a week ago. 

 

He still tells Yossarian to hide it if he ever leaves it out, afraid Milo would scold him. 

 

‘What’s the worst he could do to you, Orr?’

 

‘I don’t know. What’s the worst he could do to me?’

 

‘I asked you.’

 

‘Well now I’m curious what you think, Yo-Yo.’

 

‘Just shut up.’ 

 

“Hey. Hey.” He nudges Yossarian with the wrench that had woke him up but the man doesn’t budge despite knowing he’s fighting a losing battle. How ironic. He can’t ever seem to win. 

 

“Please, Orr. Please.” He begs, scrubbing his hands over his face and sighing into them once more. 

 

“Oh, it’ll only take a second, Yo-Yo. I need you to see. I’ve fixed the thing! The whole thing! We’ll have warm bread in the morning - or, well, in a few hours.” He rambles but he’s keeping his voice down. Lately it seems he’s become a bit more self aware and whether it’s because Yossarian has scolded him so much for being so damn careless or he’s just generally maturing.. Who’s to say. 

 

“That’s great.” 

 

“Isn’t it? The burners don’t get too hot, not hot enough to boil water so I’m not sure -“ the wrench slips from his hand again and bounces off of the lantern, splitting the glass and any of the gasoline inside of it spills from the sides, the fire that was once quite dim and relaxing is now growing into a furious blaze and the only thing Orr can think to do is throw hunks of dry dirt and glass back at it. 

 

It was the smell and suspicious rise in temperature that made Yossarian open his eyes and spring to action, pushing Orr away who had lodged glass into his hands. 

 

Forget anything Yossarian had thought about him maturing, starting a blazing fire in their tent had to take the cake. 

 

“I’m sorry, Yo-Yo,” he says but he’s grinning. Of course, this only pisses a half awake Yossarian off even more than the fire that’s burning the hair on his legs and the tips of his fingers as he tries his damndest to put it out without using the last of the water in their canteens. He truly is such a lazy bastard, even he’d admit as much - a canteen refill takes a matter of five minutes and that’s counting walking there and back, however, Orr has him damn near trained to refill both of their canteens at nine o’clock.

 

‘I’m thirsty. Is your canteen dry?’ Orr will ask with a toothy, dumb grin. Yossarian will nod at him. 

 

‘Well, maybe if you go for me, I’ll make you some coffee Milo gave us. He-he.” 

 

‘Maybe?’

 

‘I will. I will make you coffee, Yo-Yo.’

 

Yossarian always gives in, whether it’s coffee or something else, he always yanks the canister from Orr’s soft but nail-bitten fingers and refills it in his underwear. He tells himself he gives in because he tries not to talk to Orr more than he necessarily has to but his heart knows it’s because part of him wants to take care of Orr - without him, there’s a lot he wouldn’t have and perhaps he owes it to the kid. 

 

When the fire is out, Yossarian is a sweaty, out of breath heap that had collapsed back onto the bed beside him, the sides of his bedsheets were singed and his fingers were blistered - not as bad as Orr, though, who was sat in the corner where the sun had finally risen to shine in just enough for him to pick out some of the big chunks of glass. The problem was that the more he picked out of his left hand, the more the glass got lodged his right. “Ouch,” he breathes but for some reason he’s still smiling, his nose twitching with every shard of glass he extracts and flicks out of one of the open flaps in their tent. 

 

Yossarian watches him silently, perhaps too pissed off to say much but he’d admit he was thankful the ordeal had given Orr something new to preoccupy himself with, even if that thing was causing him pain. Yossarian is no monster, though, and couldn’t watch Orr bleed all over himself for much longer. He grabs their empty canteens and walks past Orr as if he wasn’t there, barefoot and half nude, he goes to fetch them more water like he does every morning except this time he smells like fire and the sun has barely risen. 

 

“Hey.” McWatt, who’d been smoking a cigarette with his ass sat happily on a discarded tire says, “What are you doin’ up? And why do you smell like bacon?” He asks, standing to inspect Yossarian who, at this point, can’t help but laugh. He knows McWatt isn’t any more sane than Orr is but he’s got just a bit more sense about him when it comes to certain things. “Orr started a fire.” He says dryly, drinking from his canteen and shrugging his shoulders with a dumb smile on his face and water dribbling down his chin, “Tee-hee” He scampers off, leaving McWatt to watch. 

 

“You’re getting more and more like him every day - I think he’s a witch!” McWatt calls to him but Yossarian is already back inside the tent, extending a full canteen out to Orr who grins wider than Yossarian has ever seen. “Thank you.” He says quietly and he can hear the glass in his hand actually tap against the metal canteen when he grabs it. 

 

It makes Yossarian wince. 

 

“I thought you were mad it me, left me to sleep somewhere else.” 

 

“I am mad.”

 

“So why didn’t you leave?”

 

“I can’t very well sleep after that.” 

 

“Yes you could.”

 

“No, I cannot. You almost burnt down our whole tent, Orr and everything in it.”

 

“I’ve dropped a metal plate on you in your sleep once. Right on your head - it was one of them nights you went out with McWatt. I thought I’d killed you, but you snored real big after I took the plate off your head.” 

 

Yossarian stares at the kid, his brows furrowed gently, his mind in utter disbelief. 

 

“Oh, and one time Aarfy smoked me out of here when you were napping. I tried to wake you up. He didn’t know you were sleeping.” Orr takes another gulp of his water and winces at his sore hands that are still covered in blood, dirt and glass. 

 

“So, I think you could sleep. I think you might be able to sleep through anything, Yo-Yo.”

 

John nearly takes it as a compliment. 

 

“Yeah. Maybe.” He says gently, no energy left inside him to be angry at Orr - although, this could have killed them, at least he didn’t die from a metal plate being dropped on his head. 

 

“Are you still mad?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s okay.”

 

There’s a pause that only lasts a minute or two. 

 

“Are you still mad?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Yossarian doesn’t say anything this time. Instead, he grabs Orr’s hand and gently starts to pluck out the shards of glass that the boy couldn’t get out himself - he’s smiling still and it makes Yossarian smile, too. He’s never known anyone to smile so much. 

 

“Why don’t you let anyone else call you Yo-Yo?” 

 

“What do you mean?” 

 

“Well - ouch - I heard Kid Sampson call you that and you seemed mad at him. Told him not to call you that.” 

 

Yossarian shrugs, his face closer to Orr’s hand now so he can see. “You call me that.”

 

“I know I do.”

 

There’s a pause again and Yossarians eyes dart up to look at Orr whose grin grows once more. “Why only me?”

 

John has to think for a moment - he supposes it’s not something he’s given much thought, or perhaps he had let his brain compartmentalize certain things. Orr says a lot of things to or about Yossarian that he wouldn’t let or tolerate anyone else saying but he had always told himself it’s because they’re bunkies. They sleep in the same tent, eat the same things, they’ve learned to live with one another in as much harmony as humanly possible for two people so opposite from one another. 

 

“Why only me?” He asks again but he knows Yossarian heard him the first time, just like all the other times he’s repeated his questions over and over after not receiving a response. 

 

“Well, because you gave me it, I suppose.” 

 

“Okay.”

 

“Is that a good enough answer for you?”

 

“I guess so.”

 

Yossarian presses his thumb into the palm of Orr’s hand which warrants a high pitched moan triggered by pain and glass and then of course a soft giggle following suit. 

 

“There’s still more in there.” Yoassarian whispers like it’s nighttime again, his canteen tipped gently over the boys bloody hands to rinse them clean, revealing more glass and cuts. “You really did a number on yourself here. Maybe we should take you to Doc. He’ll fix you up good. Much better than I- “

 

“No.”

 

There’s yet another pause between them, their eyes meet again and Yossarian opens his mouth to say something. 

 

“I want you to.” 

 

Yossarian closes his mouth, jaw clenched and his head nodding. He forces himself not to smile. You know, maybe McWatt was right when he said Orr is rubbing off on him. He has no choice but to pick more of the glass out, wincing a couple times because he has to admit, this must hurt and he’s both baffled and not at all surprised that Orr can take it. 

 

“Make a fist for me.” 

 

Orr closes his right hand and doesn’t wince this time, taking a look for himself and inspecting the surface to find anymore pieces but there was nothing left. If he were honest, he’d tell Yossarian he wants to smash his hands right back in the pile of glass so they can stay like this for a little bit longer. “Ouch - “ He says, but he’s lying. 

 

“What is it? Let me see.” 

 

“I think there’s more in there.”

 

“Orr, I don’t see any.” He argues, pouring more water over the hand that’s stretched out in front of him, only old cuts seep slowly with blood and there’s nothing left there to pick out. 

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I don’t think so.” 

 

“I swear!”

 

“You’re fucking with me.”

 

“Well, it’s no different than your trips to the hospital for your liver.”

 

“I have a liver condition.”

 

“No you haven’t.” 

 

“Yes, I have.”

 

Orr opens his mouth again but he doesn’t speak, he just scoots his body closer to Yossarian, his legs still crossed. 

 

“No, you haven’t.” He says again, their faces mere inches from one another, so close Yossarian can feel the warmth Orr seems to always have around him. 

 

“Are you still mad?” 

 

“Maybe.” 

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“You need some bandages - Mudd left a first aid kit over here -“ he goes to move his body but Orr grabs onto his shoulders, blood being left wherever his hands go but Yossarian is frozen with shock, his heart racing just like it does every time he’s up in the sky except this time there’s a flutter in his chest. 

 

“What?” He gathers the courage to ask, afraid of what Orr might say next but the boy doesn’t say anything at all - instead, he presses his lips to Yossarians as if they’d done it a million times. And, perhaps they had. He can recall countless mornings Orr had woke up covered in a coldsweat, his eyes never leaving Yossarian for hours afterward. Sometimes Orr tells him he has nightmares about Yossarian going down somewhere in the ocean, his body floating around them as they swim near the beach but nobody says anything, they just kept swimming. 

 

John never tells Orr he has the same dreams because he would simply hate to speak something like that into existence. The thought of being without Orr hurts him and maybe now with their mouths open against each other’s like this in their tent that smells like smoke, he can admit it. 

 

Yossarian would be lost without Orr and Orr would be no better off if the tables were turned. 

 

“Are you still mad, Yo-Yo?” Orr asks against the lips he’s wanted to kiss since he’d seen them, their tongues still prodding against one anothers in curious fascination. 

 

“I never really was.”


End file.
